A 'vote of confidence' for the Liberals: Key takeaways from Monday's federal byelection in Quebec

This week’s by-election in Lac-Saint-Jean could set the stage for the 2019 federal election in Quebec, observers say, and the opposition parties have a long road ahead

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Richard Hébert, Liberal candidate for Lac-Saint-Jean, at a campaign event last week. Hébert won the riding with a decisive victory on Monday.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Francis Vachon/File

OTTAWA — This week’s byelection in the Quebec riding of Lac-Saint-Jean could set the stage for the 2019 federal election in that province, observers say, and the results show the opposition parties have a long road ahead if they hope to make gains on the Liberals.

The race, which saw all four party leaders campaigning in the rural riding, ended in a decisive win for Liberal candidate and local mayor Richard Hébert, who took home 38 per cent of the vote. The Conservative and Bloc Québécois candidates finished well behind him, with roughly 25 and 23 per cent of the vote, respectively. Hébert will take over from long-time Conservative MP Denis Lebel, who had held the riding since 2007.

The Tories easily won a second byelection in the Edmonton riding of Sturgeon River-Parkland to replace former Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose.

The two byelections are the first since the Conservatives and the NDP elected new leaders this year. Here are four takeaways from Monday night’s results in Quebec.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the win a “vote of confidence” in the government’s economic plan. “It’s a real pleasure to be able to see that in rural Quebec, but across the country, Canadians are responding extremely positively to the economic message we put forward,” he said.

Karl Bélanger, former principal secretary to past NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, said the byelection “could be representative of what the battleground would look like in Quebec” in 2019.

“And there’s only one party that could feel good today about their results and that’s the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau, especially considering the problems they’ve had in the past few weeks,” he said.

Former Conservative spokesperson Saro Khatchadourian said voters in the riding may have simply wanted to be on the winning side. “We should keep in mind that this riding has a large forestry industry,” he said. “With the current negotiations with the U.S. and softwood lumber, they probably prefer being in power than in opposition.”

A “terrible night” for Andrew Scheer?

Monday’s byelections were the first since Andrew Scheer was elected leader of the Conservative Party in April. The loss in Quebec marked a “terrible night” for the new leader, according to Bélanger. “Andrew Scheer is going to have some thinking to do about his Quebec strategy and perhaps some Quebec activists in the Conservative Party today are wondering if they made the right choice in picking him over Maxime Bernier,” he said.

But Khatchadourian argued the Tories’ previous success in the riding was largely due to Lebel’s popularity as a former mayor of Roberval and a former cabinet minister, which was always going to be hard to replicate.

“It’s of course never easy losing caucus members of the calibre of Denis Lebel and Rona Ambrose, and it’s even harder to replace them,” said Conservative Party spokesperson Cory Hann in an email. “We knew without either of them we faced a tough byelection.”

Still, Khatchadourian didn’t sound bullish about Scheer’s odds in Quebec in 2019, based on his performance to date. “I think that the NDP and to a certain extent the Conservatives may be swept from Quebec next election, but that road is still long,” he said.

“A concern for New Democrats”

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who was elected Oct. 1, pre-emptively distanced himself from the results, telling reporters earlier this month in Lac-Saint-Jean that he’d only had a few days to make an impact.

“I think 23 days is not a long time at all, but some observers are asking today if there was a Jagmeet Singh effect,” Bélanger said. “I think it would be unfair to say that there was, one way or the other, but clearly, more will need to be done to regain some of the ground that was lost in 2015.”

The NDP candidate, Gisèle Dallaire, finished second behind Lebel in 2015, but fell to a distant fourth place, behind the Bloc Québécois, in Monday’s byelection.

“The results in Lac-Saint-Jean were not surprising to me, but they should be a concern for New Democrats,” Bélanger said.

What’s next for the opposition? “Keep hammering away”

Despite the opposition parties’ poor showing in Lac-Saint-Jean, observers said they need to stay the course and wait for the tide to change. Scheer should “continue doing what he’s doing,” Khatchadourian said. “Stick to the economic message and just keep hammering away and hopefully that’ll erode some of the Liberals’ popularity in the province.”

The Liberals are currently polling at 40 per cent in Quebec, Bélanger pointed out. “People are satisfied with the Trudeau government in Quebec right now. They do not see a reason to vote for somebody else,” he said. “So it’s going to be up to the three opposition parties to keep hammering away at the problems.”

Will it be a hot war with protest and acrimony, like Uber vs. taxis? Or is the outcome inevitably foretold, no matter what, as in Netflix vs. Blockbuster?

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